Sunday 4th June - Houston - "We have a problem".

We landed in Houston ready for a bit of faff to get our bags collected and checked in for the OKC leg, however this was actually the easiest part. Immigration was also reasonably easy and quick. It was very quick for me, as I believe having been through Houston before on a 9.5 year passport has helped. Dave had to queue to get his biometrics updated on his new passport. Which means next year that will be me!

Then starts the "fun".

There were thunderstorms in the area, so we started hearing the weather alert tone going off on people's phones. One of the sounds of storm chasing along with the dulcet tones of the NWS Weather Radio and the ubiqutous Tornado siren.

The storms were starting to cause some havoc with the flights, as there were also storms in the Oklahoma City area.

We took the Skyway monorail transit (to which we were about to get very accustomed) to Terminal B for the OKC flight, to get to the gate to be told there was a gate change to Terminal C. Back on the skyway for another transfer between terminals and more storm watching. We got to the gate at Terminal C to find that we then needed to go back to Terminal B for yet another gate change. More Skyway, more storm watching and a long wait that apparently was for a first officer but basically was because flights in and out of OKC and Houston were being delayed and cancelled.

Eventually our flight, including the delayed one preceeding and the two after to OKC were cancelled. Just what we needed after a long transatlantic flight and plenty of walking between gates.

This then required a long walk to United Customer services to see what our options were. After queuing for an hour the best they could do was a confirmed flight at 9.25pm the next night. Urgh. We also needed to try and get an idea of where our bags were....
We decided that the best course of action would be to fly to Dallas in the morning and get a car for the 3 hour drive up to OKC which would get us there late afternoon. Meanwhile I was booking a hotel for the night. Bags were somewhere in IAH but no one knew where or how we could get them... *sigh*

I have never been so glad to have been prepared. I remembered to pack extra pants, socks, top, contact lens solution, toothbrush, toothpaste and glasses in my hand luggage, something I don't normally do. A permanent change in strategy now!

We called the hotel, which had a free airport shuttle. Apart from it would be free if it ever turned up. After an hour and a half waiting for a shuttle that we were assured was on it's way twice, we caught a cab.
We turned up to the hotel to find the shuttle parked out the front, it was very much not on it's way to get us, or full, or anything else.

This is where our luck started to change...

The lovely girl on the front desk was very apologetic when we explained we had to take a cab for a free shuttle that was obviously not shuttling.
She preceeded to give us the room for the night FOR FREE! So considering this palava was about to start costing us quite a bit of extra money (Hotel for the night $60, Car in Dallas $50, Fuel for car) this was a welcome development.

Due to the jet lag, worries about where in the midwest our bags might be at this point and the eternal problem out here of noisy air con... which for a very light sleeper like me is a problem. Ear plugs are good, but I then worry I won't hear my alarm!
It was a lovely comfy bed though, so I did manage to snatch a few hours here and there, waking a couple of times way too early.

So this is why Houston needed a post of it's own... what should have been an easy connection to OKC turned out to be an extra mini adventure we weren't anticipating.